Clubs & SIGs Programming

With nearly 200 Harvard Clubs and Shared Interest Groups open to more than 320,000 University alumni worldwide, the Club and SIG network is the HAA’s largest person-to-person outreach program.

Harvard Clubs and SIG allow alumni opportunities to customize their HAA experience. Harvard Clubs & SIGs encourage Harvard graduates to connect to Harvard friends, alumni, and students from across the University over wide-ranging personal and professional interests, whether or not these stem directly from their Harvard experience.

You are invited to learn more about the very popular and successful Club & SIG programming opportunities:

Early College Awareness

According to the Harvard Impact Study, Education is the #1 focus for alumni volunteer efforts. Early College Awareness (ECA) provides Clubs, SIGs and individual classes with a meaningful and easily doable community service program designed to help students and parents understand that a college education is an achievable goal.

The ECA program is not an admission recruitment program for Harvard. The purpose of the program is two-fold. ECA aims to actively engage middle and high school students who don’t think college is an option, or who might be the first in their family to consider attending a college, and gives greater assurance to young students and their families that attending and paying for college is a realistic goal. ECA provides further purpose to alumni/ae seeking to extend their involvement in education beyond Harvard-centric efforts such as interviewing and Prize Book.

ECA program options range from a single school assembly presentation on “college is achievable for all” to classroom speaker programs that “Make The Curriculum Real” through professional and personal alumni stories to half and full day events held jointly with local community partners. ECA can work at a single school, or across a wider geographic area; and in ways that require little or no expense to Clubs, SIGS, or classes.

Planning Your Event

How it works

Volunteers from the local Harvard Club will start by contacting a school’s superintendent, principal, and/or guidance counselor for approval before developing the program’s content. Venue logistics are handled by Club volunteers, and the event is presented free of charge to the 7th and 8th students and parents.

Six Steps to Implement an ECA Program

An Early College Awareness program can take many forms as long as it accomplishes the dual mission of alumni engagement and delivering a ‘college-possible’ message to students in 7th through 11th grades who may not think it is possible or worthwhile. This Toolkit outlines the six steps and four basic models to consider:

Decide which ECA model or combination you wish to implement

Establish an ECA Committee and Chair

Identify any contacts/relationships with specific school or school district administrators that your alumni may have.

Reach out to the school administrators, discuss options, and schedule a date.

Reach out to potential partner organizations.

Develop communication strategy and presentation format.

Models

Half-day/One-day Community-Wide Program

In School Assembly

In Classroom Speakers that “Make The Curriculum Real”

Partner w/ local school outreach (“Teach-In Day”)

Examples of past speakers & programs:

Len Elmore, who played for the University of Maryland basketball team, and then played professionally for the New York Knicks. After retiring from professional basketball, he further continued his formal education, earning a law degree from Harvard Law School.

Jean Fugett, a college graduate who played for the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl X, and went on to manage Beatrice International, an international company headquartered in Paris.

At the conclusion of the ECA program, many Harvard Clubs raffle off college-items such as tee shirts, hats, lanyards or sweat shirts for the students.

Participating Harvard Clubs

The experience of Harvard Clubs with the ECA program has led to important connections and collaborations with local educational institutions, teachers, counselors and administrators, speakers, sponsors, supporters, and services providers who also encourage families from less advantaged backgrounds to plan early for their children’s higher education. Presenting ECA as an event makes this process manageable, memorable, and distinguishable, if not unique in the community. This program and its processes can easily relate to other services and organizations too.

Harvard Alumni Contact in Honduras

Harvard Arab Alumni Association

Harvard Club of Beijing

Harvard Club of Bolivia

Harvard Club of Boston

Harvard Club of Broward County

Harvard Club of Bulgaria

Harvard Club of Central Florida

Harvard Club of Chicago

Harvard Club of Chile

Harvard Club of Fairfield County

Harvard Club of Finland

Harvard Club of Israel

Harvard Club of Japan

Harvard Club of Merrimack Valley

Harvard Club of Mexico

Harvard Club of Minnesota

Harvard Club of Monterrey

Harvard Club of Naples

Harvard Club of New Jersey

Harvard Club of North Shore

Harvard Club of Northeast Ohio

Harvard Club of Phoenix

Harvard Club of Seattle

Harvard Club of Shanghai

Harvard Club of Southern California

Harvard Club of St. Louis

Harvard Club of Switzerland

Harvard Club of the Republic of China (Taiwan)

Harvard Club of the United Kingdom

Harvard Club of Virginia

Harvard Club of Western Pennsylvania

Harvard-Radcliffe Club of Maryland

Harvard-Radcliffe Club of Westchester

Rocky Mountain Harvard University Club

* These Harvard Clubs participate in the ECA Program according to the 2017-2018 Club and SIG Annual Reports.

Global Networking Night

"Global Networking Night (GNN) is living proof of the dynamism and connectedness of the Harvard alumni community. Each year we see more cities participate and more alumni attend to strengthen their personal, professional, and intellectual bonds within the network. I hope you will participate in our next GNN." -Philip W. Lovejoy

Global Networking Night (GNN) is a great opportunity to explore and expand your Harvard Network. This unique annual event brings alumni together for one night a year in cities around the world. Held in local establishments, GNN events are designed to provide networking opportunities in fun, informal, and relaxed settings. The first GNN, held on December 30, 2008, saw over 1,700 guests in 15 locations across the globe. Since then, GNN has expanded to over 100 locations hosting more than 8,000 attendees each year. All GNN events are open to Harvard alumni, students, faculty, and their guests. Attendance in most cases is free, although some locations may have food and beverage available for purchase.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Interested in attending Global Networking Night?The next Global Networking Night will be held on Wednesday, January 9, 2019! See if your city is hosting this year and register!

Who is eligible to participate?This event is open to Harvard alumni, students, and faculty. Guests are welcome. No recruiters or external companies please.

How much does it cost?Event attendance in most cases is FREE; food and beverage may be available for purchase.

How can I learn more about networking with the Clubs and SIGs hosting?You can learn more by looking at our online Club/SIG directories.

Harvard Prize Book

Introduce talented young people to the opportunities available at Harvard, and recognize their scholastic and personal achievements through the Harvard Prize Book program. Prize Books are presented annually in more than 2,000 high schools around the world to outstanding students in the next-to-graduating class who demonstrate excellence in scholarship and achievement in other nonacademic areas. The award is often given at the school’s graduating exercises, with appropriate remarks by a local alumnus/a.

To establish a Prize Book award, a Harvard Club/SIG or Club/SIG member need only contribute the cost of one book. Participating Clubs and SIGs should contact the local high school principal and guidance counselor to introduce the program and to select the student to receive the award. Most Clubs and SIGs choose from titles offered by the HAA, although Clubs and SIGs may choose books not on this list.

There are three books available for presentation as a Harvard Prize Book:

THE HARVARD BOOK, by the late William Bentinck-Smith, is a collection of passages and quotations about Harvard. The revised version of The Harvard Book adds 120 pages to all of the original 1953 material. The book includes passages by Presidents Eliot, Lowell, Conant, and Pusey and narratives of the presidencies of Nathan Pusey and Derek Bok. Contributing writers include John Updike, Theodore H. White, Erich Segal, David Halberstam, Barbara Ward, Jackson Bate, Charles Dickens, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Thomas Wolfe, Cleveland Amory, Alistair Cooke, and Archibald MacLeish. Price: $24.00

Harvard A-Z, by John T. Bethell AB ’54 et al., offers an alphabetical compendium of short, but substantial, essays about Harvard University. The book contains more than two hundred entries written by three Harvard veterans who bring to the task more than 125 years of experience within the University. The entries range from essential facts to no less interesting ephemera—from the Arnold Arboretum designed by Frederick Law Olmsted to the peculiar medical specimens of the Warren Museum; from Arts and Athletics to Towers and Tuition; from the very real environs (Cambridge, Charles River, Quincy Street) to the Harvard of Hollywood and fiction. Price $23.00

Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds, by Richard J. Light PhD ’69, offers concrete advice from his 10 years of interviews with Harvard seniors. Professor Light answers fundamental questions: How do you choose classes wisely? What is the best way to study? Why do some professors inspire you while others leave you cold? How can you connect what you’re learning in the classroom with the rest of life? Filled with practical advice, illuminated with stories of real students’ self-doubts, failures, discoveries, and hopes, the book is a handbook for academic and personal success. Price $19.00

ShippingOrders can be made online. For orders of ten or more books, bulk shipping is included within the continental United States. For domestic orders of one to four books, there is a flat $4.95 shipping charge. For domestic orders of five to nine books, there is a flat $9.95 shipping charge.* International shipments are based on current U.S. Postal Service rates and air charges.

*Please note: Domestic shipping rates are to a single address only. Please email info@thecoop.com for further questions about shipping.

OrderingPlace all orders with The Harvard Coop mail-order by clicking here or by calling Cortney Campbell at (800) 368-1882. For questions about ordering, please contact The Harvard Coop mail-order staff at (800) 368-1882 or email to ccampbell@thecoop.com.

HAA Speakers Bureau

The Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) Speakers Bureau Program provides Harvard Clubs and Shared Interest Groups (SIGs) with the annual opportunity to host distinguished members of the Harvard faculty and administration for an educational event. The participating faculty and administrators generously volunteer their time and energy to keep alumni connected to the rich intellectual life of the University, and they receive no honorarium for their efforts.

U.S. and Canadian Clubs and SIGs may request one faculty speaker per academic year. Please review the program guidelines and the catalog of participating Harvard University faculty members. The speaker list includes faculty from all Harvard schools, and seeks to represent the evolving and diverse nature of the educators of Harvard. If you would like to host a Harvard speaker, please consult with your Club/SIG officers and submit your request form by the appropriate deadline. While it is not always possible to obtain your first-choice speaker, the HAA looks forward to working with you to create and execute a successful, engaging event.

Contact

If you have any questions about the Speakers Bureau, please connect with the HAA’s Clubs and SIGs office via email at clubs@harvard.edu, or by phone at 800-654-6494.

Please review the HAA Speakers Bureau Guidelines and Catalog of Speakers for 2018-19 below and be sure to return the Speakers Bureau request form by the appropriate deadline:

For a general event planning guide/timeline and a briefing template, please click here.

Summer Community Service Fellowship Program

Help students thinking about working in the public interest by funding a Summer Community Service Fellowship (SCSF). Through this program, Clubs and SIGs have the opportunity to provide a fellowship to a Harvard undergraduate working with a nonprofit host organization in their local community or area. Participating Clubs and SIGs find the program to be an exciting and creative way both to support Harvard’s students and contribute to their home communities. Club and SIG members particularly applaud the degree of “hands-on” engagement and interaction, as they directly speak with students about their experiences, receive student reflection reports at the end of the summer and make recommendations on fellowship award recipients to a selection committee representing Harvard University, the HAA, the Center for Public Interest Careers (CPIC), and hosting Clubs and SIGs.

Established in 1992, the Summer Community Service Fellowship (SCSF) program has become a crucial initiative in supporting the development of a new generation of graduates working for the public interest. The program, administered jointly by the HAA and CPIC, provides the largest source of funding for summer public service at Harvard College. It is recommended that participating Clubs and SIGs raise approximately $5,000 per fellowship, which is given to the student as a stipend to offset the income they would have earned, had they worked in a for-profit organization.

Students have applied their fellowships in a variety of places: a pediatric HIV program in St. Louis; a women’s shelter in Washington, D.C.; a youth-enrichment program in South Miami; a theater company in Philadelphia; Students for an Energy-Efficient Environment in Lexington, Kentucky; a museum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and a medical center ob/gyn clinic in Minnesota, to name just a few.